- Credibility:
HUMBOLDT PARK â The popular Puerto Rican festival and parade are returning with in-person celebrations â but for the first time in years, theyâll be on different weekends.
The festival and the parade typically are held during Fatherâs Day weekend. The parade will be June 19, but festival organizers have opted to celebrate Sept. 23-26.
Unlike last yearâs parade, which was a virtual event, this year will have floats, music, appearances from groups like the Latin Motorcycle Association and countless Puerto Rican flags. It will be âjust like the parades weâve had in the past: music, dancing, joy and flags and flags,â said Xiomara Rodriguez, of the Puerto Rican Cultural Center, which is organizing the celebration.
Now in its 43rd year, the parade will honor the 50th anniversary of the neighborhoodâs oldest Puerto Rican mural at North and Artesian avenues and the 40th anniversary of Juan Antonio Corretjerâs poem, âBoricua en la Luna.â
âThe Puerto Rican parade has always been a moment to honor our ancestry and our resilience and our fight against being pushed out, against colonialism, against police brutality,â Rodriguez said. âThis parade is really going to be a celebration of our resiliency and a moment to reflect on the way we have come out of the pandemic to celebrate our joy as a radical act of resistance.â

Meanwhile, the group behind the festival is gearing up for a September celebration that will look and feel a lot like the 2019 event, the year the group took the reins.
Many of the details for September are still being finalized, but it will feature live music, dancing and traditional Puerto Rican food, along with educational and employment opportunities such as a job fair and workshops for children, said Carlos Jimenez, executive director for the Daniel Ramos Puerto Rican Festival Committee.
The group replaced the Puerto Rican Parade Committee, which was officially ousted last spring after years of controversy and financial mismanagement that ended in bankruptcy and an Illinois Attorney General investigation into missing ticket money.
The Daniel Ramos Puerto Rican Festival Committee hopes to build on the success of the 2019 festival and further distance themselves from the embattled group, Jimenez said.
âWhen we took over, we had no money [and] it was very hard to raise money and get sponsorships because of the history of the festival,â he said. âOur first year out, we proved weâre different. ⌠Hopefully, this year, they can see weâre for real. This is different. Those days are over.â
Jimenez said his group moved the festival to September because they thought city festivals had to be scheduled after July 4 under the cityâs reopening plan. But festivals are allowed now, and Chicago will fully reopen June 11 without capacity limits.
The group chose the September weekend for the festival to commemorate El Grito de Lares, the largest revolt against Spanish rule in Puerto Ricoâs history on Sept. 23, 1868.
âWe felt that if weâre going to do something in September, we knew we couldnât do it during Labor Day weekend. We looked at the calendar, we were like, âWait a minute, El Grito de Lares is on the 23rd.â It just made sense. It was like serendipitous,â Jimenez said.
The live music lineup at this yearâs festival will be dedicated to Marcelino Ramos, a longtime Chicago music promoter who died of COVID-19 last summer, Jimenez said.
âHe made a big impact on the music scene in Chicago, and heâll never be forgotten,â he said.
Last yearâs Puerto Rican festival was canceled entirely, but many people took to the Division Street stretch known as âPaseo Boricua,â the heart of the neighborhoodâs Puerto Rican community, for unofficial caravan celebrations.
The festival and parade organizers said theyâre thrilled to host joyous summer events again after a year of loss and hardship, particularly in Chicagoâs Latino neighborhoods.
âIt feels really, really emotional,â Rodriguez said. âItâs heartbreaking to think about all of the folks who are not here to celebrate with us because of the pandemic. We lost a lot of our elders. Itâs really sad to see that. Itâs sad to see the folks who ⌠have been pushed out within the last year because of the financial hardship [during] the pandemic and hyper gentrification. At the same time, it is a moment of pride that we are still here.
âThereâs a vibrancy and resiliency to the Puerto Rican community in Humboldt Park and on Paseo Boricua. Itâs really emotional, all in all.â
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